supplied to the rebels. the concern president obama had lying weapons would in effect be involved in a proxy war supported by iran and russia. the other side of the debate is nothing else is working and we need to create pressure on assad and build relationship with people inside syria who might take over one day. another factor is there are rebels, al-qaeda affiliated rebels the united states and the west doesn't support. and i don't think it's in the west's interest to see them end up at the top of the heap. >> rose: and then we turn to the story of the chinese army spying on the american government and american companies with david sanger of the "new york times," dune lawrence and michael riley of bloomberg businessweek. >> the cyber has been off to the side as something of an annoyance. i'm hearing this has gotten so big it's moving to the center of the relationship and it risks the rest of the relationship. i think the next thing you're going to see the president sending some kind of envoy to beijing to make that point. >> rose: the conflict in syria and spying on the unite

. anyway it came to the attention of the whitehouse, it was discussed president obama decided against it at the time and others who counseled against the proposal including vice president biden, tom dawn lynn who was recently a your show the national security advisor and susan rice. those are kind of the two camps, the whitehouse against the rest of the government as it existed at that time. but now we have a new national security team. >> rose: where was dennis mcdough know. >> i don't know where he was for a fact but i know dennis was very close to president obama. and i would probably put him in the camp of those being cautious about getting more deeply involved in the crises. and i think the argument would have lined up this way. on the side of caution, you know, you would be getting more deeply involved. and i think the concern president obama had was by supplying weapons would be in effect involved in a approximately war against a regime supported by iran and russia. on the other side of the debate the argument was well nothing else is working and we need to increase the press

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